The usage-based theory considers that the morphosyntactic productions of children with SLI are particularly dependent on input frequency. When producing complex syntax, the language of these children is ... [more ▼]

The usage-based theory considers that the morphosyntactic productions of children with SLI are particularly dependent on input frequency. When producing complex syntax, the language of these children is, therefore, predicted to have a lower variability and to contain fewer infrequent morphosyntactic markers than that of younger children matched on morphosyntactic abilities. Using a spontaneous language task, the current study compared the complexity of the morphological and structural productions of 20 children with SLI and 20 language-matched peers (matched on both morphosyntactic comprehension and mean length of utterance). As expected, results showed that although basic structures were produced in the same way in both groups, several complex forms (i.e. tenses such as Imperfect, Future or Conditional and Conjunctions) were less frequent in the productions of children with SLI. Finally, we attempted to highlight complex linguistic forms that could be good clinical markers for these children. [less ▲]

This study aimed at directly assessing the hypothesis that attentional allocation capacity influences poor NWR performances in children with SLI, using an attention demanding visual search task given ... [more ▼]

This study aimed at directly assessing the hypothesis that attentional allocation capacity influences poor NWR performances in children with SLI, using an attention demanding visual search task given concurrently with the NWR task. Twenty-one children with SLI, 21 typically-developing children matched on age, and 21 typically-developing children matched on nonword span performed an immediate serial recall task of nonwords. The nonword lists were presented either alone or concurrently with the visual search task. Overall, results revealed a resource-sharing trade-off between the two tasks. Children with SLI were affected to the same extent as their span-matched controls by the necessity to allocate their attentional resources between the two tasks. Interestingly, nonword processing strategies seemed to differ among groups: age-matched controls allocated a larger part of their attentional resources to the encoding stage, while nonword recall was more attention demanding in children with SLI and younger controls. [less ▲]

Through a review of the literature, this paper shows that linguistic and non-linguistic disorders in children with specific language impairment might be linked to difficulties in procedural learning ... [more ▼]

Through a review of the literature, this paper shows that linguistic and non-linguistic disorders in children with specific language impairment might be linked to difficulties in procedural learning, especially regarding sequential abilities. Indeed, children with specific language impairment encounter difficulties to learn visuo-motor and linguistic sequences. These difficulties are not limited to initial learning but extend to the consolidation stage in long-term memory. Finally, recent studies show that it is possible to improve procedural learning abilities, suggesting new avenues for rehabilitation. [less ▲]

This study assesses the diagnostic accuracy and construct validity of a sentence repetition task that is commonly used for the identification of French children with specific language impairment (SLI ... [more ▼]

This study assesses the diagnostic accuracy and construct validity of a sentence repetition task that is commonly used for the identification of French children with specific language impairment (SLI). Thirty-four school-aged children with a confirmed, diagnostically based diagnosis of SLI, and 34 control children matched on age and nonverbal abilities performed the sentence repetition task. Two general scoring measures took into account the verbatim repetition of the sentence and the number of words accurately repeated. Moreover, five other scoring measures were applied to their answers in order to separately take into account their respect of lexical items, functional items, syntax, verb morphology, and the general meaning of the sentence. Results show good to high levels of sensitivity and specificity at the three cut-off points for all scoring measures. A principal component analysis revealed two factors. Scoring measures for the respect of functional words, syntax and verb morphology provided the largest loadings to the first factor, while scoring measures for the respect of lexical words and general semantics provided the largest loadings to the second factor. Sentence repetition appears to be a valuable tool to identify SLI in French children, and the ability to repeat sentences correctly is supported by two factors: a morphosyntactic factor and a lexical factor. [less ▲]

The study of procedural learning abilities in children with Specific Language Impairment (Procedural Deficit Hypothesis, PDH; Ullman & Pierpont, 2005) remains a relatively unexplored field of research ... [more ▼]

The study of procedural learning abilities in children with Specific Language Impairment (Procedural Deficit Hypothesis, PDH; Ullman & Pierpont, 2005) remains a relatively unexplored field of research. Since most evidence comes from studies using tasks which involve learning of sequenced patterns, research using other procedural learning paradigms (like motor adaptation tasks) is needed to further evaluate the PDH in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Therefore, in this study, we examined the ability of children with and without SLI to learn, consolidate and generalize a mirror-tracing task, a paradigm that does not involve sequence learning and had never been used in SLI. Children with SLI and typical developing (TD) matched children participated in the study. Children with SLI were included if they scored below -1.25 SD of the expected normative performance in at least 2 language areas. Both groups had to trace ten 5-pointed stars seen only in mirror-reversed view in two learning sessions separated by a one-week delay. The transfer phase consisted in tracing a new figure. The time required to complete the tracing, and the number of errors committed were recorded. Full results will be presented and discussed during the presentation of the paper. [less ▲]

Specific language impairment refers to a non-homogeneous group: linguistic and non-linguistic abilities differ from one child to another. Increasing knowledge in this field has led to clarify both the ... [more ▼]

Specific language impairment refers to a non-homogeneous group: linguistic and non-linguistic abilities differ from one child to another. Increasing knowledge in this field has led to clarify both the definition and the diagnostic criteria in order to facilitate its diagnosis. However, the clinical complexity of this trouble questions the relevance of these diagnostic criteria. The present article intends to think about the clinical diagnostic of specific language impairment in order to allow informed decision making during its assessment and therapy. [less ▲]

When children first begin to produce the phonemes of their language, their productions are characterized by a high degree of variability (e.g., Ferguson & Farwell, 1975). As children’s phonological ... [more ▼]

When children first begin to produce the phonemes of their language, their productions are characterized by a high degree of variability (e.g., Ferguson & Farwell, 1975). As children’s phonological representations become more defined, their productions become more stable. In fact, the observation of variability beyond the early-word stage has been used as a diagnostic criteria for sub-types of phonological disorders (Dodd et al. 2005). Despite the clinical significance of phonological variability, there exists no normative data that can be used to objectively describe this variability in French. The goal of the present study was to describe variability and stability among French-speaking children between the ages of 30 and 53 months. A total of 153 children participated in the present study and were equally distributed in four groups (aged 30-35, 36-41, 42-47, and 48-53 months). We created a picture identification task with 65 target words, which contained the consonants of French in word initial, medial and final position. The children were asked to produce this series of words three times. Two measures of variability were used. (1) A consonant level analysis that investigated the stability of consonants regardless of word or syllable position. (2) A word level analysis that investigated the consistency of productions across the three series (Holm et al., 2007). The preliminary analysis focused on the consonant level analysis and revealed that the youngest group of children aged 30 to 35 months were significantly more variable than the oldest group aged 48-53 months. This shift from variability to stability will be discussed in terms of the development phonological representations. In addition, the clinical significance of variability will be discussed in light of these findings. [less ▲]

Limitations in general processing capacities have been proposed to account for poor verbal short-term memory (STM) performances in children with SLI. Previous studies observed that STM performances ... [more ▼]

Limitations in general processing capacities have been proposed to account for poor verbal short-term memory (STM) performances in children with SLI. Previous studies observed that STM performances decreased to a larger extent in children with SLI as compared to their unaffected peers when the processing demands of the task increased (e.g., Ellis Weismer, et al., 2005; Montgomery, 2000a,b). However, in these studies, the increase in attention processing demands went with an increase in linguistic processing demands. Since children with SLI experience language processing problems, it is not clear whether general attention problems or language processing problems are at the root of their larger performance decrease as compared to their unaffected peers. This study aims at directly assessing the hypothesis that limitations in general attentional capacity are at the root of poor STM performances in children with SLI, using an attention demanding visual search task administered concurrently with nonword repetition task. Twenty-three children with SLI, 23 age-matched children, and 23 nonword span-matched children performed immediate serial recall tasks of nonwords. The STM lists were presented either alone or concurrently with the target detection task. Moreover, the target detection task either stopped or continued when children had to recall the nonwords. Results show a main effect of dual task condition on both nonword repetition accuracy and target detection accuracy. Performances in children with SLI were not more affected than in controls by the necessity to perform a concurrent visual attention task during nonword lists presentation. However, nonword recall seemed to be more challenging for children with SLI than for age-matched controls. Indeed, performances in the visual task were lower in children with SLI than in their age-matched controls, but not as compared to nonword span-matched controls. [less ▲]

When children first begin to produce the phonemes of their language, their productions are characterized by a high degree of variability (e.g., Ferguson & Farwell, 1975) and are influenced by task demands ... [more ▼]

When children first begin to produce the phonemes of their language, their productions are characterized by a high degree of variability (e.g., Ferguson & Farwell, 1975) and are influenced by task demands (Khami, Catts, & Davis, 1984). As children’s phonological representations become more defined, their productions become more stable and less influenced by the task demands. Despite the clinical significance of phonological variability, there exists no normative data that can be used to objectively describe this variability in French. The goal of the present study was to describe variability and consistency among French-speaking children between the ages of 30 and 53 months, according to task demands. A total of 153 children participated in the present study and were equally distributed in four groups (aged 30-35, 36-41, 42-47, and 48-53 months). We created a picture identification task with 65 target words, which contained the consonants of French in word initial, medial and final position. The children were asked to produce these words in four different contexts : 1) picture naming ; 2) word repetition ; 3) sentence repetition ; 4) spontaneous language. Two measures of consistency were used. (1) A consonant level analysis that investigated the stability of phonological accuracy. (2) A word level analysis that investigated the consistency of productions across the four tasks. We predict that younger children will be more influenced by changes in task complexity than older children. [less ▲]